Linux for VERY old mac

[yourname3232]

I have a powermac 8500. It will only upgrade to mac 8.0 and I feel that it has lost all useful life. I was wondering if and how I could put linux on it and change it to a server or something. I also have a performa 6300cd that I would like linux on if possible. If anyone could help that would be nice.

[puntjuh]

You actually can take any distribution that supports PPC. The powermac 8500 has a PowerPC processor so feel free to try any distro that supports PPC.. Just watch out that you don't take a version of a distro that requires to much of you're powermac because well the thing is old and won't do much versions lol. So check on min ram memory etc.

Here is a site with the specs of the powermac 8500 if you don't know what exactly is in it:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl..._8500_120.html

[spoon!]

You have an Old-World Mac. There are two bootloaders for those:
* quik - runs from Open-Firmware; but the OF in Old-World Macs need some tweaking (see here and here) before it will work. Debian 3.0 installer came with quik (and came with some boot floppies to start the install); dunno about later versions.
* BootX - runs from a Classic MacOS system; so (the disadvantage is) you will need to set aside a partition with a minimal MacOS system to use it. But (the advantage is) it doesn't require tweaking Open Firmware. I've seen many people use this recently. You will need to put BootX on the MacOS system first and have it boot the install stuff to have it start the install.

Distros that work well include Debian and Yellow Dog 3, and sometimes people have tried Ubuntu, Gentoo, Mandriva, Slackware, and other major distros.

[steve.gregory]

I have a powermac 8500. It will only upgrade to mac 8.0 and I feel that it has lost all useful life. I was wondering if and how I could put linux on it and change it to a server or something. I also have a performa 6300cd that I would like linux on if possible. If anyone could help that would be nice.

Hi,
How did u get sorted with this in the end? I'm curious as I've an old Power Mac 6500 ("upgraded" with a G3 @ 250mhz via the L2 slot - wooo!). I'd love to get linux on here, heck even to run it without a gui desktop! lol

I did download ubuntu and an old release of yellow dog (2.1 iirc). But neither or the CDs where recognised by the 6500's CD drive.. hmmm gotta try again someday!

thx, steve.

[larrystotler]

I have a powermac 8500. It will only upgrade to mac 8.0 and I feel that it has lost all useful life. I was wondering if and how I could put linux on it and change it to a server or something. I also have a performa 6300cd that I would like linux on if possible. If anyone could help that would be nice.

Actually, the 8500 can be easily upgraded to OS v9.1. It can be updated to v9.2.2 using OS9Forever as well. I also know some people who are running OS X on these machines.

I have a 9600 that I have openSuSE v10.0/PPC on.

The Performa 6300 series is problematic at running Linux. Due to the lack of Open Firmware, and the NuBus expansion options instead of PCI, a lot of stuff isn't supported. Further, these machines max out at about 64MB, and they have a really bad motherboard design. You can uprgrade these with a motherboard from a 54/55/64/6500 system.

[larrystotler]

Hi,
How did u get sorted with this in the end? I'm curious as I've an old Power Mac 6500 ("upgraded" with a G3 @ 250mhz via the L2 slot - wooo!). I'd love to get linux on here, heck even to run it without a gui desktop! lol

I did download ubuntu and an old release of yellow dog (2.1 iirc). But neither or the CDs where recognised by the 6500's CD drive.. hmmm gotta try again someday!.

I have a 6500/225. I have gotten openSuSE v10.0/PPC to run on it, but it is kinda slow due to the max RAM of 128MB. v10.1 is more of a problem because the kernel support was broken for awhile, which is fixed now, but it also needs more memory. I picked up a newer tech G3/400, but it doesn't seem to work, so I can't really say how fast it could be. I'm working on some columns for LowEndMac about installing Linux on the old PowerMacs. I've gotten behind, but I am hoping to get back to publishing on a regular basis again starting this week.

http://www.lowendmac.com/stotler/index.html

[xxqq]

It's depend on the brand, type of PowerPC G3 upgrade board:

http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/li...ly00/0178.html